cut
by tommy turkish
Summary: "because i knew.. on some level.. deep deep down.. that it wouldn't be final.. that he would save me.."
1. cut

not mine (characters anyway). don't sue please. appreciated. much.  
  
  
  
  
she looked at the razor in her right hand. noticed the whiteness of her fingers. the softness of the skin at her wrist. traced the blueness just under the surface. cringed.  
  
the tears that had hovered until now at the back of her throat, welled up in her eyes. blurred her hands, her bare feet, the bathroom floor.  
  
she sat on the toilet, lid down, trying to control the emotions that raged. breathing in and out, in time with the images that flashed through her head, the voices that ran around in it, the things she felt, the things she thought she felt, but couldn't be sure.  
  
there were just too many.  
  
she brushed at her eyes quickly, inhaling deep. she still held the razor. gingerly. unsure.   
  
i don't want to do this.  
i can't do this.  
  
yes you can. you've thought about it a hundred times. all it'll take is about two seconds.  
  
i can't. really i can't.  
  
no, you can't. think of the team, rogue. they need you.   
they need you? to what? strip them all of their powers? kill everyone? need you my ass.  
  
they'll be devastated.  
they'll be relieved.  
  
they won't. not dr.grey, not mr. summers, not ms. ororo, not the professor. not logan.  
  
you don't really believe that though, do you?  
they feel sorry. you're looking to be pitied your whole life?  
  
i'll just run away then. i'll leave. this doesn't have to happen.  
  
run where?   
  
you still won't be able to touch anyone. no one. ever.  
so please tell me, cause i'm *dying* to know. what. the. fuck's. the. point.  
  
just end it. end it.  
  
please.  
  
let there be peace.  
  
let there not be this.  
  
she was crying openly now. weeping. her insides collapsing into themselves as she tried desperately to find herself in all the mess. great shuddering sobs escaped. her small body shook with the force of it.  
  
STOP CRYING. WHY IS IT THAT ALL YOU EVER FUCKING DO IS CRY?  
  
and suddenly she was inhaling great gulps of air to stop it. to, for once in her life, not be poor marie. the heaving subsided. tears still ran down her cheeks, splashing onto her thighs, weaving dark slate patterns across the light gray of her trackpants.  
  
the razor trembled in her fingers. she saw the light glint off it briefly, before it was imbedded in her wrist, pulling open the flesh like folds of cloth, spilling crimson in its wake.  
  
the blood was the first indication that something was wrong. marie stared at it, disbelieving.   
  
ohmigod.  
  
the blade slipped from her fingers, clinking to the tiles at her feet. she watched it. just watched it for a while, leak out. then it began to hurt. pain shooting up her arm, and her left hand trying desperately to stem the flow.   
  
oh god. oh god.   
  
shit, you actually did it.  
well this was the fuckin idea, why are we so worried all of a sudden?  
  
calm down. people do this all the time.  
  
but marie was up, grabbing a towel, pressing it to her arm. she shoved it under the tap, towel and all. scrambled to get the towel out of the way, watched more of herself run down the drain. watered down.  
  
logan. i need logan.  
  
oh fuck. here we go. running to logan.   
  
she wavered at that, but the blood running onto the counter pushed her out the door and down the hall. panic rose like bile. she forced herself to not run to his room.   
  
quietly. softly. or they'll all know. they'll all find out.  
  
she stifled the sobs, moved across the hard wood. her bare feet stuck sometimes, because of the heat. her hair too, to her face, her neck. tears fell to the ground and she hoped fervently no one would find them before she realized they'd be dried and gone long before anyone woke up.  
  
she held her arm and the towel to her stomach. slowed again because she suddenly thought that the blood wouldn't disappear like water. the walls began to drip into eachother. she felt the nausea and the panic grew.  
  
finally she was at his door.   
  
"logan" she whispered.  
  
she tried to knock, but found her fear of being found out only let her slide her knuckles across the wood.  
  
she turned the knob and stepped inside. moved to the bed where he already sat up for her.  
  
"marie, what is it?"  
  
she collapsed at the sound of his voice. deep, gruff. concerned. she slid to the floor and trembled.  
  
"marie?"  
  
logan turned on the light next to him, not understanding what he was seeing in the dark. and she was sitting on the ground, at the foot of his bed, crying. the sadness coming off her, the despair.   
  
he threw himself out of bed, crouched to the floor beside her, let calloused hands find her hair. stroked.  
  
"darlin'..."  
and then he smelled the blood. it hadn't registered before. the metallic, spicy scent. but this close, it was unmistakable.  
  
"i'm sorry" she was whispering. over and over.  
  
and he took the towel, drew it away from the arm it covered, and was shattered by what he saw.  
  
"holy shit."  
  
she started slipping then. leaving consciousness behind, because it just hurt too much from every angle.  
  
"marie," he demanded, "don't you fucking dare. marie.."  
  
the panic in his voice crashed into her. she reached for him. comforting, she let her hand move to his face.   
  
and he grabbed it. pulled it down to his lips and held it to him, willing the angry red that marred her silk skin to disappear. he wouldn't take his eyes off it. the draw began, soft, coaxing and then painful. like being pulled through thickening concrete. but he wouldn't look away.  
  
marie realized what was happening. felt him come into her again. his presence, familiar now. but she didn't want this. she tried to pull back her hand. his grip was like a vise.  
  
the pain in her arm subsided, lessened.. vanished. and his hand relaxed. she fell back, scrambling away from him, desperate not to hurt him any more than she had.  
  
logan slumped against the leg of his bed. sweat soaked the collar of his tshirt, the ends of his short brown hair.  
  
marie was crying again. tears falling as she looked at her arm, all traces of that desperation gone. smooth, unmarked. she would never be that, she thought. never unmarked. never not scarred.  
  
she looked over at logan, breathed with him in the dim light. counting 50 of them before she could move back to him and struggle to get him back onto his bed.  
  
finally she covered him and turned off the lamp. drained, she climbed into an armchair. sat in it, and listened to him breathe in the dark. waiting for morning. 


	2. consequences

she woke up in his bed. she could smell him in the sheets. cigar smoke, soap, his cologne, the woods. all these to greet her when she woke, so that she smiled as she pushed herself away from the pillows.  
  
and then she remembered.  
  
oh god, she murmured, burying herself back into the mattress. pulling the sheets up over her head. flimsy protection from the world she'd grown into. been thrown into.   
  
the insanity of which she, as of last night, had increased exponentially.   
  
she watched the sun light up the sheets so they glowed from the inside. the thoughts ran around inside her head for a lifetime before she finally forced herself away from the cool haven she'd made herself out of logan's sheets and got out of bed.  
  
startled, she slid back down so that she sat on the mattress it had taken her so long to leave. logan was looking at her.  
  
just looking. weighing. judging. she didn't know what. and the spit in her mouth dried up.  
  
"hell of a way to welcome a guy back."  
  
her gaze fell to the floor. he caught the pain filling her eyes just before she took them from him.   
  
"you're right. the polite thing would have been to get it over with before you got here."  
  
softly she offered up this rebuke. he blinked.  
  
"marie.."  
  
she flinched. deflated.  
  
"i'm sorry. i'm so sorry.. i didn't mean for you to see this. to see me like this. i.."  
  
she felt the tears start. the stinging that was so goddamn familiar. fucking tightening of her throat. the labour it was to breathe.   
  
none of this was supposed to happen. this wasn't the grown woman she had so wanted to show him.  
  
and that thought in itself led the welling liquid past her lids. down her cheeks. dropping soundlessly into her lap. onto her breasts.  
  
he watched them. watched her brush them away, so furious with herself. he thought his heart would break.  
  
"marie.. what happened?"  
  
she shrugged, helpless.  
  
he wanted to punch a hole through something. the rage, the need to blame someone for her pain and coming up with no one but himself, surfaced. he needed it to stop the hurt. anger was so much easier to deal with.  
  
"how do you fucking try to kill yourself and not know why?!"  
  
it was a near yell. marie jumped her eyes clenched shut against the guilt. she whispered,  
  
"i'm sorry."  
  
"don't FUCKING apologize. just tell me why."  
  
"because i'm FUCKING insane!!"  
  
her eyes were open now. defiant. pain-filled. wet.  
  
"i've got multiple personality disorder, logan, like you would not fucking believe. so when i do something there are usually about a million reasons behind it, none of which i can necessarily decipher on a conscious level."  
  
he just stared at her.   
  
"please don't look at me like that, logan.."  
  
his eyes closed slowly. opened again. ran the length of her face. her throat. her hair.  
  
"like what?"  
  
"like you don't know who or what i am. like i scare you.."  
  
"you did scare me."  
  
his hands covered his face. slid down it and then back up into his hair.  
  
"jesus, marie, you scared the shit out of me."  
  
she trembled at the quiet fear in his voice. it was so wrong.. coming out of him. she'd seen him scared before. silent. jaws clenched, ready to deal with it.. not like this. this despair.. this shaking.   
  
"i didn't mean to," she whispered.  
  
they were the only words she could get past her throat. she meant them with all her heart. and when he moved onto the bed with her and cradled her suddenly in his hard, strong arms she sobbed against his chest. as he wiped at the wetness in his own eyes.  
  
"i know.. darlin'.. i know.."  
  
  
  
  
  
"you have to talk to the professor, you know.."  
  
she looked at him from across the bed. her only response to slide her tongue over suddenly dry lips.  
  
".. marie, he'll be able to help."  
  
she exhaled quickly at this. a silent snort.  
  
"marie.."  
  
"okay. okay, i'll talk to him."  
  
she rolled over to face the wall, her legs curled up into her stomach.  
  
logan leaned over and tugged gently on the brown locks that tumbled across his pillows. she pulled her head back to look at him. eyebrows raised. the beginnings of a smile on her face.  
  
he was serious, though. his eyes. his mouth.  
  
"don't.."  
  
"don't what?" she asked.  
  
"humour me. brush me off.. this is not a bad report card, marie.."  
  
she waited. staring at the wall, knowing that he was right. hating that he was right. loving that he cared.  
  
"i know.." 


	3. charles

she stood outside his door, waiting. she wasn't sure what exactly it was she was waiting for. maybe for her stomach to stop backflipping. or for her feet to just move. for her to be ready to talk about this. to find out exactly how impossible some semblance of normal was going to be for her.  
  
i can't.  
  
she wrenched herself away from the door, turned to softly walk back to her room. to leave it alone for now.  
  
*rogue.*  
  
the voice in her head stopped her cold. it always did. she should have been used to the feeling of other people in her head, but it never failed to leave her stunted and apprehensive.  
  
*um. professor?*  
  
*yes, child. was there something you needed to see me about?*  
  
shit. shit.   
  
*um..*  
  
she almost laughed that it was seriously the only thing rolling around in her head.  
  
*rogue. please come inside.*  
  
for a fraction of a second she actually contemplated just not. leaving. just, ignoring his request, pretending he wasn't really the acting headmaster of the school she attended, that she didn't really owe him that much. but that blatant disrespect just wasn't in her. so she turned around for the second time and opened the door to his office.  
  
"hello rogue."  
  
he sat at his chocolate-amber oak desk, his kind eyes watching her closely, compassion, an acknowledged helplessness and a determination to solve it all rolling around in their dark blue.  
  
"hi.. hey professor."  
  
"please, sit down."  
  
motioning to one of his leather chairs, he wheeled himself out from behind the desk, moving towards her, stopping just opposite. cornered, she sat, her hands limp and uncertain in her lap. she looked everywhere but his face.   
  
he watched her studied avoidance. silent. lost in his own thoughts. regrets. guilt, even. finally, sighing softly he moved over to the wall. touching a panel, he rolled backwards slightly as another swung open.  
  
"rogue, would you like something to drink?"  
  
she looked up at the sound of his voice and the strange whoosh of a wall opening up. at the sight of the fridge, and the bottles lining it, her lips involuntarily twitched.  
  
the prof's secret stash?  
  
across the room, he chuckled. "it's hardly what you think," he murmured, choosing a bottle and two glasses and moving back towards her.  
  
she watched him pour garnet liquid into the cups and pass her one. she accepted, waiting.  
  
"go on."   
  
she glanced at the glass and back up at him. waited a little longer. and raised the cup slowly to her mouth.  
  
"it's.."  
  
"strawberry cordial," she finished for him, her eyes wide.  
  
his eyes crinkled, lovely, at her expression.   
  
"you were expecting something more ... potent perhaps?"  
  
she smiled.  
  
"absolutely not."  
  
"mmm.."  
  
her own eyes grinned at his suspicions. at her own. she ducked her gaze into her glass again.  
  
"it's delicious," she told him softly. "just like my momma used to make. in the summer. it'd get so hot. and we always had mountains of strawberries from the bushes in our gard..."  
  
she trailed off. the memory lost in layers of cloud. of hurt. of remembering what came after.   
  
the professor's own eyes mirrored the mist of hers. his was an extraordinary telepathy. marked by experience that lent to it an empathy just as strong. more often than not the man didn't have to *read*.. it was enough to feel.  
  
"rogue.. your past is not for you to change. your future, however, you have complete control over.."  
  
her eyes met his at that.  
  
"it's not as simple as all that, though, is it charl.. professor."  
  
xavier looked at her through suddenly clearer eyes. surprised. his mouth turned up at one corner. his gaze past-filled.  
  
"he's still in there."  
  
"yes," she whispered. "it's not usually.. i mean, he.."  
  
"i understand, child," he told her, and he did. "i only wish that you didn't have to see what he saw.. the things that turned him into what he now is. that spawned his.. beliefs."  
  
her eyes silently appreciated his.. getting it.  
  
"he hates so much.. without distinction.. it scared me.." she opened, quietly. and with his gaze intent, he listened. "but even more overwhelming, frightening, was his love. it.. and his logic.. to feel yourself embraced by him, persuaded.. he's very persuasive."  
  
charles nodded. a growing appreciation for this slight woman-girl before him, holding her own against such a mind.  
  
"but you ultimately see things differently?"  
  
she shrugged.  
  
"i.. ultimately i think i'd just rather subscribe to your thought. it might very well come to that.. to what erik.. but to act on that.. projection essentially.. it's.. unjustifiable. i don't want to become what that would make me."  
  
"you sound very much in control, rogue."  
  
she smiled. small.  
  
"i have my moments."  
  
"of control.. so also, of the opposite? of mental chaos?"  
  
she nodded. small.  
  
"like last night?"  
  
her eyes shot up. she had expected him to know. somehow figured he would. but still..  
  
"you know."  
  
"i do.. logan came to me today. we talked.."  
  
then, "in all honesty, rogue, i knew before then.. panic tends to amplify.."  
  
marie's eyes widened in sudden horror.   
  
"oh i.. professor, i had no.. i'm sorry i.."  
  
"rogue there's absolutely no apology necessary.. if anything, i should be.."  
  
but she wasn't hearing him. her mind, instead had set out on another route. without thinking, she interrupted,  
  
"does jean know?"  
  
xavier stopped. "i.. haven't discussed anything with her.. but if your.. volume were any indication.. i would assume that she heard as well."  
  
marie covered her face with her hands, groaning softly.  
  
"what a fucking mess."  
  
charles barely heard the pain-filled whisper.   
  
"rogue, jean is hardly one to.."  
  
"it's not jean professor. i know she wouldn't.. but what must she think of me?"  
  
her eyes met his now, glittered.  
  
"and logan.. he was so.. disbelieving.. so hurt. and you. what's wrong with me that i repay such goodness and acceptance as you have shown me with this?!"  
  
her shoulders trembled. the shine in her eyes spilling onto her cheeks. her hands up quickly to brush it away. to not burden.  
  
"rogue."  
  
she found the ceiling, stared as she tried to return to herself.  
  
"don't let this be about anyone but yourself. you can't live to meet the expectations of others. i can't speak for jean, who will in probability be very saddened by this. or for logan, who.. who feels this as only he can. but i expect nothing from you but honesty. you have no debt to pay off. no favours to return except that of truth. and the feelings of others mean nothing next to your own."  
  
he waited for her to accept it. let it sink in.  
  
"and if i don't know my own feelings, professor? if everything i am seems to be the combined feelings OF others?"  
  
he watched. waited..  
  
"you say my future is mine to control. only i can't control my own mind sometimes. and my skin never. i can't touch people, professor. and it's.. it's inhuman.."  
  
she had to stop again. look up. trace the carvings in the ceiling. hope maybe the tears would run backwards. not drip onto her shirt. her pants.  
  
"i don't.. feel like a person sometimes, i'm so.. detached. not even.. never.. part of the rest of it.."  
  
he watched her shoulders tremble under the weight of what she carried.   
  
"i've been very remiss rogue. i.. i promised you protection. whatever that entails. and a means of controlling your powers. i've neglected you. i'm sorry.. i.. i had no idea you were so conflicted, child."  
  
she shrugged. hoping somehow to ease this tension.  
  
"it's.. i'm not usually so emotional about it. it's something i can generally let go of.. not think about.. dwell on.."  
  
"..except on the nights it gets too much."  
  
she nodded, having to concede.  
  
"rogue. i appreciate fully the fact that you don't entirely know your own mind as you say, but i.. why now? at least.. i'm not aware of your having.. done this before.."  
  
"oh i haven't," she was quick to confirm.  
  
but forced now to explain. to attempt an explanation.  
  
"i.. i don't know.."  
  
he looked at her. understood her more than she was willing to admit he did. wanted her, still, to tell him. to just say it. that it might give her some release.  
  
he nodded.  
  
"very well.."  
  
and he let it go. but suddenly she found that she couldn't. that as much as she didn't want to tell him.. she did.  
  
"i... um.. i think it might have something.. a little to do with.. logan."  
  
xavier strained to hear the last word she uttered. the name that spilled hastily, quietly from her mouth. he waited. relieved. lifted. and she let the words flow, knew that he knew, that he wouldn't judge, or share. that this was safe.  
  
".. i think when he was gone.. it was easier almost. because then it didn't matter if i could touch or not. it didn't matter that i would never be able to have a real relationship, because the only person that.. well, he was away.. so it didn't mean anything."  
  
"except now he's back," the professor offered finally, at her silence.  
  
"he is," she concurred softly. "and i'm reminded every minute of what my powers cost me... of what i'll never have."  
  
she lifted the wetness off her lashes.  
  
"but he does love me. in his way. and i'm grateful for it. it's just.. life is so extraordinarily complicated, professor.."  
  
"yes, rogue. painfully so."  
  
she smiled. small. on one side of her mouth. and decided, at his open understanding, his complete lack of judgement, of any ultimately useless attempts at contrived optimism, watching the red silk cordial in her cup, to give it all voice.  
  
"professor."  
  
"yes, rogue?"  
  
"i think, too, i did it because i knew.. on some level, deep, deep down.. that he was here.. that.. that it wouldn't be final.. that he would save me.."  
  
xavier looked at this, his student. a lost soul like so many of the others, with her almost inexplicable lifeline. but then, perhaps that was the nature of those thin threads. he gazed at her doe brown eyes with his own, older, less soft, but softened now at her honesty. her complete truth.  
  
"i'm glad, rogue. that he was. that he did." 


End file.
